Love Live! Superstar!! 2nd Season

As another year begins at Yuigaoka Girls' High School, ushering in a fresh batch of students, the school idol club Liella! is excited to expand their membership. However, Liella! is extremely popular due to the astounding talent they have continuously displayed; thus, new students lack the courage to even consider approaching the club, fearing the rigorous training that might lie ahead.

Amid her worries, club leader and co-founder Kanon Shibuya meets first-year student Kinako Sakurakouji and tells her about the world of school idols. This leaves Kinako in awe, but being fairly average herself, she feels she would not be capable of matching the spirited performances of the brilliant Liella! members. Nonetheless, Kinako receives encouragement to join the group and comes to share their dream of reaching for the stars once again in the grand Love Live! Competition.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Shibuya, Kanon Main

Date, Sayuri Japanese

Tang, Keke Main

Liyuu Japanese

Heanna, Sumire Main

Payton, Naomi Japanese

Arashi, Chisato Main

Misaki, Nako Japanese

Hazuki, Ren Main

Aoyama, Nagisa Japanese

Wakana, Shiki Main

Ookuma, Wakana Japanese

Yoneme, Mei Main

Yabushima, Akane Japanese

Onitsuka, Natsumi Main

Emori, Aya Japanese

Sakurakouji, Kinako Main

Suzuhara, Nozomi Japanese

Margarete, Wien Supporting

Yuina Japanese

Ootsuka, Hiroshi Producer

Kyougoku, Takahiko Director

Nagasaki, Yukio Sound Director

Nakayama, Naoya Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Oct 9, 2022

Marinate1016

Recommended

Just when I think Love Live has reached its peak it kicks things into gear and surpasses everything I thought I knew about this franchise. It’s with great pleasure that I say Love Live Superstar!! S2 is easily the best the franchise has ever been and is a blast from beginning to end.

When the Liella girls got announced a couple of years ago I was cautiously optimistic about how their anime would go. They had amazing designs, but not much was known about them since they were only formed in 2021. Fortunately, from the very first episode of season 1 I was hooked on the ... girls’ music, personalities and overall vibe of this LL iteration. That only continued to increase as season 1 went on, and things have got even better this time around in season 2. The biggest overall improvements for me are the story, the drama, the stakes and the performances. LL is at its core a light hearted idol series, but this season actually did a good job of creating tension with Keke’s family situation, introducing the new girls and Margarethe’s rivalry with Kanon.

Speaking of the new girls, I LOVE all of the first years, with the exception of Natsumi. I think they were all such great additions and Shiki and Mei have already become two of my fave idol girls in general. Seeing liella finally come together as a full unit and reach their full potential was just amazing. Of particular note for me was Sumire. She’s one of my fave characters ever, and you could really see her take major strides in this season. Going from kind of a jokey comic relief character to a real leader and her episode with Keke is among the top 3 in LL history imo. A truly beautiful episode.

Now of course, you can’t talk about an idol show without going over the music. I thought the music in this season was phenomenal. Several of the girls solo songs are on constant repeat in my playlist and it looks like Sunrise have nearly perfected CGI blending during performances too. It’s amazing how we’ve come from such blatant and obvious CGI during lives to not even being able to really detect it. Of particular note for me are Margarethe’s performance from episode 10, Liella’s first full 9 member performance and Shiki’s solo performance. All 3 were just stunning.

Love Live Superstar!! Season 1 is a must watch for any fan of the idol genre. Not only is it the perfect follow up to season 1, but it’s one of the best idol seasons, period. The Love Live franchise continues to push the bar and sit atop the music anime mountain, I do not see that changing anytime soon.

Love Live Superstar!! Season 2, gets 10 out of 10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Oct 9, 2022

GG-WP

Mixed Feelings

Is this season better than the one before it? No, it clearly isn't. Is it, however, worth watching? Yes, the show was able to maintain its consistency in terms of comedy and SoL-like factor.

This season introduced new characters, including a rival named Wien Margaret, who appeared halfway through the season. The story for this season can basically be summed up in a few sentences: first-year students joins Liella!. Liella! fights for the honor of representing their region. Liella! defeats Wien Margarete, as expected. And Kanon Shibuya gets invited to study abroad at one of the most prestigious music schools, which is the final and most ... unexpected event in this season (With a 360 turn).

The plot in general was mediocre and lacked the spark that the previous season possessed. The show's finale did not help matters either. For the positives: The addition of new members added more personality to the group, making Liella! more lively and adding more drama to the show. Wien Margarete's singing surprised me, as it did most people, since she was clearly the best singer and had the best songs this season. And as for the negatives: The songs this season aren't as good as those from previous season or other Love Live series, but they're still worth a listen and adding to one's playlist. The introduction of the new members also had little impact; aside from Shiki Wakana and Mei Yoneme, who are at least decent, the other two's reasoning for joining and becoming idols didn't make much sense. And, let's be honest, Wien Margarete joining the fray as a rival was a bit of a puzzle, as it appears she was thrown in for the sake of being an antagonist and having a new and fresh face.

In general, I believe that the comedy and SoL aspect truly distinguishes this Love Live series from the others, as it manages to keep us engaged, from being sad, happy, to a genuine heartwarming moment, as that this series is designed to be light-hearted and a switch your brain off series to manifest different types of emotion. This is a show that is about feeling good rather than heavy drama. Given how engaging the story was in the previous season, I expected more from this season in terms of story and execution, but it is still worth watching.

I would recommend the show to the following people:
- Fans of Slice of Life.
- Fans of Comedy.
- Fans of Love Live.

I would not recommend the show to the following people:
- Not a fan of dull or boring stories with little to no progression.
- Not a fan of drama that doesn't elicit much emotional response.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Oct 10, 2022

myokohi

Not Recommended

With this being the third anime installment in the Love Live! saga (not including Nijigasaki which is a separate entity), Superstar!! had a lot of pressure among the larger LL community to live up to expectations that would recreate a familiar formula while also providing something new to entice the fans.

Unfortunately, it has failed at this goal, and nothing short of a miracle can salvage this anime series.


While there's much that can be said about Superstar!! in regards to its plot, like retaining a common structure comparable to School Idol Project and Sunshine!!, it manages to do incomprehensibly worse than its predecessors at telling a ... coherent narrative. What sold this show to me to get this low of a rating though has been the characters and their dynamic with one another, which is practically nonexistent if Shibuya Kanon is not involved.

As opposed to both μ's and Aqours (as well as Nijigaku), Liella, the idol group in this anime, only comprises five members in contrast to the usual nine… only until it doesn’t, deciding to add an additional four members (Shiki and Mei are amazing, the same can't be said for Natsumi and Kinako) while leaving the original five, minus Shibuya Kanon, with little character growth besides comedic bickering (Keke and Sumire) or last minute dialogue (Ren and Chisato). Had Liella! followed its initial vision from the start of the series, there was the possibility of developing closer and perhaps more realistic character interactions than seen in the previous installments. With how the characters have interacted with each other so far in both this and the prior season though, this seems to be unlikely to happen even with an unprecedented third season.

At the end of the day though, Love Live! at its core is a music anime, and wow does Superstar!! fail to deliver in this category. While in the insert songs present in the anime are mediocre at best to downright awful at worst (the b-sides of their singles are amazing though, and it’s infuriating these superior songs weren’t featured in the anime like they should’ve been), the true musical aspect of Superstar!! that it shares with his predecessors has been the original soundtrack. At least, that’s what I would’ve said had they built upon the soundtrack from the first season instead of recycling the same two themes whenever something even slightly emotional happens (call it the Ren funeral song when a somber piano and/or violin plays). In other words, this season managed to make me have utter disdain for the one element of a Love Live! anime that never failed to disappoint me. I gotta hand it to Superstar!! Season 2 for pulling off the unthinkable ^^

Whether you're a diehard fan of Love Live! or just stumbled upon this anime by mistake, I would strongly avoid giving Love Live! Superstar!! a watch so long as you're interested in a compelling story, relatable characters wanting to achieve their dreams, or great music. For those who are among the Love Live! community that have decided to give Superstar!! a skip, I applaud you for making the right call, as School Idol Project, Sunshine!!, or Nijigasaki are all infinitely better stories within the Love Live! franchise, and only deserve far more love than the trainwreck that has been Liella’s journey.


What could’ve been a fresh and beautiful story about a group of friends going through their three years of high school together to win the biggest idol competition in Japan, what we got instead was nothing short but disappointing, especially as someone who had high hopes for this group when they first debuted. Overall, a 2/10 for Love Live! Superstar!!

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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